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  Ross Coulthart 
When multi-award winning journalist Ross Coulthart joined Sunday in 1995 he was already highly regarded for his investigative journalism. His ground-breaking work at Sunday has cemented his reputation.Since 9-11, much of Coulthart’s work has focussed on international terrorism. He was the first journalist to interview Abu Bakar Bashir, the alleged spiritual leader of terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah in Indonesia just days after the Bali bombing killed 88 Australians. His investigations into JI and its links with Al Quaeda and Islamist terror groups have taken him to many countries, including Indonesia, the Philippines and Iraq. A recent 2004 story Iraq on the Brink, was his second visit to Iraq since it was invaded by Coalition forces in March 2002. The program questioned then US Chief Administrator Paul Bremer; and a senior Shia cleric in Falluja Abdullah al Janabi, now an alleged leader of the insurgents. This investigation also raised serious concerns about the way some Coalition soldiers used excessive force in apprehending and searching the homes of suspected insurgents. In 2002 Coulthart won a Gold Medal at the New York Film Festival for Best International Report for his investigation into how Indonesian and militia killers in East Timor had gone unpunished for their crimes – a collaboration with well-known film-maker Max Stahl. Coulthart has also won two Walkley Awards and a Logie for his investigative reports on Sunday. In 2001 Coulthart’s revelations included an investigation into a secret plan to cripple a union, with strikebreakers used in a dirty tricks campaign against the powerful federal meat union. In 2000 Coulthart returned to East Timor and his was the first television crew to go on patrol with Australian troops in East Timor and to report from the Indonesian side inside the militia camps. The story revealed how close our Diggers came to disaster in their guerilla war against the pro-Indonesian militia. In 1999 Coulthart was a finalist in the Walkley Awards for All Media coverage of the Asia Pacific region - for a story which investigated Australia's military training links with Indonesian military officers implicated in human rights abuses in East Timor. That story was also a finalist in the 1999 New York Film Festivals Awards as well as another program on the dangers of some types of electrical wiring in modern aircraft - Fire in the Sky. Also in 1999, Coulthart won the inaugural Law Council of Australia Law Journalist Award in 1999 for a story entitled: 'The Justice System on Trial'" His investigative work includes stories on massive wastage within the Australian Defence Department, and a report from Cambodia proving how Opposition politician Sam Rainsy's attempted assassination was carried out by Hun Sen aligned troops. For this he won the 1997 Walkley Award for Excellence in Broadcast Coverage of Asia. In 1998 he also won a Walkley Award for his story on Pauline Hanson and the Media. His work as a reporter at Sunday has also included an investigation into the misuse of funds by charity, CARE Australia, and an expose of cronyism and impropriety in some of this country's Aboriginal Legal Services. This report, The Prisoners Who Waited, won the 1996 Logie Award for Most Outstanding Achievement in Public Affairs. Coulthart is a law graduate from the University of Victoria, New Zealand. Starting his career at the New Zealand Herald in Auckland, New Zealand, Coulthart then worked as a freelance reporter in South East Asia for British and New Zealand newspapers. Moving to Australia, he covered politics for The Sydney Morning Herald and his investigation there into corruption inside the NSW State Rail Authority was a Walkley Award finalist. Coulthart moved into broadcast journalism with the Nine Network's A Current Affair as a producer. Working with reporter Peter Wilkinson, he revealed bribes paid by businessman Sir Leslie Thiess to Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Queensland's then Premier. This won them a Penguin Award and had long-term repercussions for Australian politics. Following this, Coulthart became a reporter for ABC Television's Four Corners and during this time his investigation into corruption in the soccer industry sparked the reforming Soccer Inquiry, and an expose on Australia's spy service, ASIS, led to the Royal Commission into ASIS. Coulthart is also a member of the prestigious, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, based out of the Centre for Public Integrity in Washington DC, USA. ICIJ is an international cooperative of investigative journalists who collaborate on major investigations. Married with two daughters, Coulthart is a yoga enthusiast; loves snorkelling and ocean swimming; and he finds cooking therapeutic. |
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